RCO Medal awarded to distinguished musicians

The Royal College of Organists is to recognise the achievements of two distinguished musicians by awarding them its highest honour, the RCO Medal.

The recipients of The Medal of the Royal College of Organists in 2019 are:

Mr Hans Fagius, for distinguished achievement in organ playing; and
Mr Nicolas Kynaston, for distinguished achievement in organ playing.

The honorands will receive the RCO Medal at the College’s Conferment of Diplomas at Southwark Cathedral on Saturday 9th March 2018.

RCO President Martin Baker said: “This year’s honorands have enjoyed international acclaim as performing and recording artists for many years, and it is an honour for the College to acknowledge their many achievements by awarding them the RCO Medal.

“The Conferment Ceremony in March will offer a wonderful opportunity to celebrate such endeavours alongside the achievements of the College’s members who have been successful in recent diploma and certificate examinations.”

Specialising in the interpretation of baroque and romantic music, Hans Fagius has performed extensively throughout Europe, Australia and North America. Fagius’s definitive recordings (many on the Swedish label BIS) have been highly acclaimed over the last forty years and he has devoted much time to teaching, holding appointments at Stockholm and Gothenburg, and since 1989 at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen. In 1998, Hans Fagius was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

A student of Fernando Germani and then Ralph Downes, Nicolas Kynaston was appointed organist of Westminster Cathedral at the age of nineteen, a position he held for ten years. He made his debut at the Royal Festival Hall in 1966 and has since enjoyed a highly successful career as a concert organist. Numerous concert tours, award-winning recordings and jury appearances – he was the first British organist to be invited to sit on the Grand Prix de Chartres – have ensured Nicolas Kynaston’s position as one of the nation’s foremost organists.

Awarded for the first time in 2012, The Medal of the Royal College of Organists (‘The RCO Medal’) recognises distinguished achievement in one or more of the following areas relating to organ and choral music: performance, teaching, scholarship, composition, organ-building, conducting, administration, and philanthropy; it is also available to recognise specific service to the College.